Ecotourism and Environmental Change in the Romanian Carpathians

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　The Carpathian Mountains still preserve a wide diversity of quasi-natural landscapes, most of them protected within national and natural parks. The entire Romanian Carpathian Chain holds 22 major protected areas that total approximately one million hectares, among which there are eight natural parks, twelve national parks and two geoparks. They constitute a favourable background for the multitude of existing tourist resorts and the development of a wide range of tourism activities. The development of ecotourism relies primarily on the natural and human potential of the Carpathians and is related to the European Union initiatives in this field. At the outset, a few nuclei materialised, combining the attractiveness of national and natural parks with ethnographic traditions. Environmental and socio-economic change in the Carpathians includes climate change, biodiversity loss, management of shared water resources, trans-boundary air pollution, trade in endangered species and waste disposal with a direct impact on ecotourism.